Missio Dei: WK3 - WED
THE GOD WHO GOES LOOKING
Luke 15:4-6 (NLT) “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the lost one until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’”
The thing that triggers this parable is not a theological question. It is a social complaint. Jesus is eating with the wrong people again, tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees are offended by it. Jesus responds by telling three stories about lost things being found.
In the first story, the shepherd does not wait for the sheep to become wise enough to return on its own. He leaves and goes searching into the wilderness, the exposed and uncertain place where vulnerable things disappear. And when he finally finds the sheep, he rejoices. There is no irritated lecture about inconvenience or wasted time. The recovery itself becomes cause for celebration.
I once heard about the president of a small college who noticed that a student had disappeared for several days without explanation. Instead of handing the situation off to an administrator, she drove to the student’s apartment herself and knocked on the door. The student eventually opened it emotionally exhausted and embarrassed by how much of life had begun unraveling privately. The president brought her home for dinner, let her do laundry there, and spent the evening talking with her around the kitchen table.
The shepherd in Jesus’s parable would have understood exactly what she was doing.
Because the sheep in Luke 15 does not know it is being searched for. It has no strategy for finding its way home and no sudden moment of clarity out in the wilderness. The shepherd’s movement toward the sheep begins long before the sheep understands anything at all.
That is Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees. Of course he eats with sinners. The table itself is part of the search.
Luke 15:4-6 (NLT) “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the lost one until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’”
The thing that triggers this parable is not a theological question. It is a social complaint. Jesus is eating with the wrong people again, tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees are offended by it. Jesus responds by telling three stories about lost things being found.
In the first story, the shepherd does not wait for the sheep to become wise enough to return on its own. He leaves and goes searching into the wilderness, the exposed and uncertain place where vulnerable things disappear. And when he finally finds the sheep, he rejoices. There is no irritated lecture about inconvenience or wasted time. The recovery itself becomes cause for celebration.
I once heard about the president of a small college who noticed that a student had disappeared for several days without explanation. Instead of handing the situation off to an administrator, she drove to the student’s apartment herself and knocked on the door. The student eventually opened it emotionally exhausted and embarrassed by how much of life had begun unraveling privately. The president brought her home for dinner, let her do laundry there, and spent the evening talking with her around the kitchen table.
The shepherd in Jesus’s parable would have understood exactly what she was doing.
Because the sheep in Luke 15 does not know it is being searched for. It has no strategy for finding its way home and no sudden moment of clarity out in the wilderness. The shepherd’s movement toward the sheep begins long before the sheep understands anything at all.
That is Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees. Of course he eats with sinners. The table itself is part of the search.
- Who in your life might feel far from God right now?
- How does knowing God searches for people before they search for him change your perspective?
- What would it look like for you to “go looking” in love and compassion?
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